Re: Install munge-texi.pl for use by packages?

[John W. Eaton]

On 07/07/2014 12:50 PM, Mike Miller wrote:

> Yep, exactly as Carlo said, no reason for duplication, if we can
> replace this with an Octave script or function, it can also be used to
> build Octave's own manual as well.
>
> I think these are great ideas, please file a wishlist bug on Octave to
> replace munge-texi.pl with an equivalent Octave function that can be
> used for both Octave's manual and for package manuals.

I'd like to be able to cross compile packages so that we can cross 
compile a complete Octave distribution that includes packages that are 
already built and ready to install along with Octave.  Will having this 
script as an Octave function make that job harder?

For example, we can't currently cross compile Octave directly from the 
mercurial sources because doing so requires running the copy of Octave 
that is being built in order to create figures for the manual.  And when 
doing a cross build, that doesn't work.  I suppose that making the 
munge-texi script an Octave function would make that problem slightly 
worse because then building would fail if you modified the manual 
sources, not just if you modified the source file for one of the figures.

If we do go down this path, then I suppose a solution for cross 
compiling would be to require that we build (or use, if it is already 
installed on the system) a corresponding native version of Octave that 
can be executed on the build system to generate the figures and perform 
the munge-texi step.

If we are going to install this function somewhere, then perhaps it 
could just be an option for the pkg command?  I do agree that we should 
find a better name for it in any case.

jwe